Obsidian Brooch of a Guitar

A guitar rendered as a brooch, its body cut from obsidian and set into silver, this brooch compresses an instrument into a small sculptural object where the black volcanic stone forms the guitar's body against the silver frame and strings. The use of obsidian, a material native to Guerrero, grounds a figural subject in a distinctly Mexican material and gives the brooch its dark, reflective center.

The design was later reissued in all silver, a sign that the figure read strongly enough to stand without the stone, though the original obsidian version is the one that exploits Spratling's signature pairing of silver with native materials. The two versions document how a single design could be carried across material choices.

The brooch is recorded in the literature, appearing in both Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver and its Centennial Edition, placing the design within the published corpus. That a figural guitar brooch is catalogued reflects the range of subjects Spratling drew into his jewelry, from Pre-Columbian motif to everyday objects of Mexican life.

Spratling, who founded the Taxco revival in 1931, made obsidian one of the recurring stones of his palette, and a guitar carved from it turns an emblem of Mexican music into wearable silver. The reissue in plain silver shows the design's durability beyond its original material.